


The Boy With the Camera

by annegirlblythe



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Acknowledgment that Harry didn't understand the war he was fighting, Angst, Art and life, Battle of Hogwarts, Complex Political Structures, DA - Freeform, Dumbledore's Army, Funerals, Gen, Photography, Post Battle of Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 02:41:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8950717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annegirlblythe/pseuds/annegirlblythe
Summary: At the funeral of the tiny, chipper boy who used his camera as a novelty when Harry knew him, he is shown a side to the recent war that he'd had never even considered. 
"Neville stops walking and looks at Harry, seriously. 'He took photos the whole time. The whole time. And I think part of him might have been taking them for you, Harry. I set them up for everyone to remember him by. I think you should have a look.' He smiles, tight and sad, and squeezes Harry’s arm. 'He’d be glad you’re here.'"





	

In the weeks since the Battle, Harry has been attending every funeral and every memorial of every Hogwarts student and Order Member killed in the crossfire. He thinks, each time, that it’s going to be easier, that the sight of crying loved ones is going to get easier, that he’s going to stop feeling responsible for this carnage, but that never quite happens. 

This funeral, though, makes Harry’s entire torso feel like it’s been gutted, like he’s an empty shell. Colin Creevey had been so  _ small.  _ Harry hadn’t seen him during the Battle, saw only his crumpled body, but he remembers the boy’s effervescent affection, light step, fierce defense of his ideals. 

The fact that he’s just dead is... 

“He might’ve been the only one who understood how significant everything was,” Neville says, quietly, casting his eyes down as he says it. The two of them had wandered away from the crowd on the Hogwarts grounds together. Ginny was still back there, talking to Colin’s family. She’d spent six years at school with him, six years knowing him more deeply than Harry had. He had appreciated her support in coming, and soon realized that she, too, had a reason to pay her respects. 

“Wasn’t even allowed to attend Hogwarts itself,” Neville continues, though Harry hadn’t responded to the first statement. “So he stayed with Madame Rosmerta in the village. He didn’t go into hiding, really, even after all the announcements about registering your blood. He and his brother set up in her basement under the Three Broomsticks. McGonagall helped them put Concealment Charms on it and stuff. After we figured out how to get into the castle from the Room of Requirement, he stayed here whenever he could. It was really metal, actually. He knew it was important to be around, more than any of us did, really. We were trying to survive, but Colin was doing something else. He had a different agenda, a bigger one.” 

Neville stops walking and looks at Harry, seriously. “He took photos the whole time. The whole time. And I think part of him might have been taking them for you, Harry. I set them up for everyone to remember him by. I think you should have a look.” He smiles, tight and sad, and squeezes Harry’s arm. “He’d be glad you’re here.” 

With the warmth of Neville’s hand still on his shoulder from the nearly brotherly touch at their parting, Harry continues into the Great Hall, inside Hogwarts for the first time since the battle. On the walls are pictures he doesn’t recognize, but soon sees that they’re newly taken - black and white photographs moving gently. They’re arranged artfully, and Harry draws closer. Immediately, he can see the care taken in the storytelling. Both Colin’s photos, and Neville’s careful placement of them seem significant in a way that nothing has since the end of the Battle. The exposition begins at the first meeting of the DA in the Hog’s Head, with Harry looking regal as he explains its purpose, Hermione watching Harry as if to see if he’ll say her words or his own, and Ron glaring daggers at anyone who looks about to say something rude in the face of the stoic child soldier talking. He had no idea that they had looked like that, that he’d been so serious a fifteen year old.

His words are recorded underneath, and Harry wonders at the fact that Colin had known how important the club was to be, even then. It wasn’t the admiring boy who had asked Harry for photos his first year who had taken these. It was someone who really understood the depth of the war about to be waged. 

There are photos of the first meetings, with Neville falling backwards onto pillows, Luna delighted over her first patronus, Harry looking at his students’ progress and looking older than a fifteen year old had any right to. 

There are photos of the six DA students in the hospital wing after their night in the Department of Mysteries, beat up and bloody, Ron and Neville hosting new scars, Hermione journaling frantically and trying to figure out what it all meant, Luna sitting in the windowsill and watching the sky, Ginny’s hand on Harry’s back as he mourns Sirius. Harry remembers his own annoyance at being photographed, but the result is striking. Underneath, in tiny cursive fitting of the boy writing, their names and the words, “ _ after You-Know-Who’s return at the Ministry,”  _ and “ _ prepared only by the skills learned in the DA”  _ and  _ “heroes.”  _

From here, Harry stops recognizing the events depicted. There is a photo of Neville’s recommencement speech, the boy standing tall and defiant, rousing students from all four houses. The caption summarizes the speech, telling students the importance of defending themselves, the importance of standing up to authority and asserting themselves and each other as worth protecting. 

A photo of Luna sitting with a group of second years, the caption saying she had been explaining why they aren’t learning this in class anymore is moving more gently than the rest, the filter light and gauzy like Luna herself. A photo of Ginny demonstrating a Shield Charm so perfect it sparkles in the stale air of the Room of Requirement makes Harry burn with pride, even seeing the photograph now. 

There are photos documenting student injuries, the tiny cursive underneath explaining the circumstance of every Cruciatus Curse. 

There is a photo of a group of fourth year Hufflepuffs perfecting the Sectumsempra curse on a Room of Requirement dummy, looking angry but proud. There’s no caption on it, because it speaks for itself, and for some reason, this is the one that chokes Harry up, even more than what comes next. Kids -  _ kids  _ \- who had nothing to do with this war or the abuse inflicted upon them, having to learn to hurt back. 

The photos of the Battle itself show Death Eaters falling and students sobbing against walls, of teachers rallying their students like troops and siblings choosing sides. These don’t have captions, and Harry realizes why when the photos stop with one of Antonin Dolhov, with green light shooting towards the boy holding the camera. 

There is no peace in these funerals, no peace in the knowledge that Harry hadn’t been _fastenoughsmartenoughgoodenough_ to spare all this pain. The war was over, now, and Harry had lived through every moment of it - experienced it in his own determined, one-tracked way. The force of the realization  _ others were feeling it differently, maybe even more vibrantly,  _ hits him now. 

Harry stares at the photographs for a long time, knowing that they will be burned into him in the absence of real memory of the second DA. Good. 

He deserves to remember.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm harryjamesheadcanons on tumblr.


End file.
